Pet Names
by metacognitive
Summary: Stop trying to be cute. Drabble collection, not canon compliant.
1. Pet Names

"Can I call you Miss Irpa?" the Emissary-in-Training asked her, and her eyes flashed yellow.

"No," she said to him, but his mind was already made up.

"Miss Irpa," he cooed, and leaned in close to steal a kiss. She brought a hand up to smack that ridiculously full mouth of his shut, but he just fluttered his lashes at her, catching her hand in his to bestow her a kiss to her knuckles.

"You'll make a useless emissary," the newly-christened Miss Irpa said to him, and he smiled with his bright teeth and laughed.

"And you'll be sleeping with one," he said, "Miss Irpa. That flows so much nicer than your name."

"I'm never referring to you as your real name again," she said, and he shrugged.

"Good. I can't even pronounce it," and finally stole the kiss he was after.


	2. Princess & the Boy

"Is that so, Big Boy?" Lydia says, and Aiden gives her a look so devastated she has to smile.

"You like me," he insists, and she rolls her eyes.

"I'm not having this conversation again," she drawls, and glances at her nails. They're painted pink, so light the color of her nail bed is a barely tinted shade. Her reflection in the window doesn't have as much as a smudge, his shirt still unbuttoned.

"Babe," he says, and she cuts him off with a simple glance over her shoulder.

"Don't," she says, delicate, "call me babe. I'm not your babe. I'm not your girlfriend. So! Don't. Call me. Babe."

"Babe," he says again, but this time he smirks. She wonders whether his brother has the same smile. He's probably much better in every way. "Can I call you princess, Princess?" he asks her, and she says with as chipper a tone, "I will make your life hell."

"Okay," he says, but he's laughing already, clothes cleaned up and hair artfully tousled. "Later, Princess," and when he walks out without another word she slams a palm on the counter top in front of her. Bites her lip and smiles.


	3. Animal Magnetism

He's not sure how to explain what she just saw, but then she says, "Wait, you're a werewolf?" and he feels like he's mostly off the hook.

"Uh," he says, and she raises an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

They're silent a moment before she says, "How—that explains—wait, you have to tell me everything."

He blinks at her, "What, now?"

"Of course!" she exclaims, hands coming up to frame her temples. Her red shirt rides up, jean jacket too, and he says, "I'm the alpha?" like a question.

She quiets. "Wow," she finally says, "is that why you're trying to fight off Bardo?"

"I mean, kind of," he says, "but not exactly."

"Alpha McCall," she says thoughtfully, quietly, and glances at him shyly.

"Oh no," he says, hands raised up, "no, it's not like that."

"Come on," she says, "it sounds good."

"But what can I call you, then?" he asks, tucking his hands into his jean pockets. He stretches, and her eyes follow the pull of his orange shirt.

"Kira?" she says, eyebrows furrowed and vaguely confused, and he shakes his head.

"I like how 'Fox' sounds," he tells her, and she groans.

"That's terrible," she says, "I'm not a stripper." He laughs.

"I like it," he insists, and she smiles.

"Fine. But only if you tell me more about this werewolf business."

He feels a grin tugging at his mouth. "Sure."


	4. Family Bonding

"You're a diva," Cora stresses, and Peter rolls his eyes.

"You're brother is a sad pile of tragedies. And?"

Cora scowls at him, "Listen, I don't care what you do—"

"Except for how you _do_," Peter says, and smirks when she falls silent, still glaring at him. "Look, missy," he says, and laughs at her expression; "you think I don't know? Your pet names are stupid, of course, but it's cute, that you two think you're in love."

"What are you planning?" she says, taking a step closer to him, hands fisted in the leather jacket she stole from Derek.

"Don't worry about it," Peter says, "I'm just having my fun. I _am_ a diva, after all."

"Mister Diva," Cora says mockingly, "_God_, I hate you."

"And we hate Derek," Peter says with finality, "suck it up. What I'm doing won't hurt anyone. Much."

"I know better than to believe you," she says.

"And _that_," he answers, "is why you're the Irpa to my Diva, no?"


	5. Boogeyman

"You are not a good man," she says, and he throws his head back, laughing.

"Oh," he says, "_princess_. Did you think I ever really cared about that? About you? About _anyone_ else?"

"You're a _monster_," she says, and he sobers, straightening to look at her. His eyes are dead.

"Fair enough," he says coldly, and advances on her with slow, calculated steps. She backs up, always too close to him. "But I _made_ you, little girl," he says, in her space, his cologne in her nose and his skin giving off heat; "don't you know what that _means_?"


	6. Mujer

one.  
"Would you believe me," Cora says, fingers warm in the cavern of his chest. He stares at her, barely able to see the yellow of her eyes but oh, he can feel it, she knows he can, and she curls her palm around his stuttering heart. "Would you believe me," she repeats, "if I told you I was the good daughter?" and then she smiles as she digs her nails in, pulls her hand straight out to see the light fade from the hunter's eyes, his heart warm and tacky in her hand.

two.  
"I would do far worse than kill," Derek's wife says, and Isaac stands in front of her daughters so they don't catch the half-flash of yellow, blue, red, as she stares down the men in front of them, "when it comes to my family," so they can't watch the way her clawed fingers come down, swift.

three.  
Cora slams Allison up against a tree, says, "By the time you started training, I had over ten years under my belt," and grins when the woman spits out, "Rematch,"after being pinned to the mossy ground, Scott shouting in the background and the scent of arousal heavy in the air.

four.  
Derek tells her, "I need an heir," and she'll remember that, let it flow over her when the wife says it back to him one day years later as he tries to convince her to stay, "Don't stand there and tell me you married me for love."

five.  
"It's not that," Laura says. "I trust you," Laura says. "It's Derek," Laura says. "I don't trust him."


	7. The Breakup

"I can't do this anymore," Cora says, and Stiles says, "What," like he can't believe his ears. He can't believe his ears.

"I need to—I need to be here for Derek."

"What?" he says again. She ignores him.

"The baby's coming soon, so he'll need some help—"

"They've survived far worse than parenthood—"

"Don't," she says, and finally turns to look at him. She's in an oversized black hoodie that must be Derek's, though the werewolf in them has always made it so that all clothes belongs to everyone. It might be Scott's, for all he knows. Stiles looks up at her, from where he's sitting on the couch, and then stands up.

"Cora," he says, cautious, and he sees that fire light up in her eyes, that anger that comes with being treated as anything less than unbreakable. He knows better. "Cora," he says again, "what are you doing?"

"I can't," she says again, teeth gritting, a flash of pink tongue as she struggles to get the words out, "do this. Anymore."

Stiles feels that same anger bubble up in him, can't really hold back, says, "Are you _kidding—_"

"This isn't about you, about us—"

"—how is it _not_ about—Jesus fucking Christ—"

"—Stiles, you act like—"

"—how am I supposed to act when—"

"—you're infuriating, they were right you know—"

"—pot meet kettle, Cora, you think it's ever been _easy_? I—"

"—so _fucking_ selfish—"

"—and it's not about me, okay—"

"—I have other—"

"—nearly _four_ years—"

"—He's all I have left—"

"He's _not_." The words are heavy between them. Cora looks at him with blank eyes.

"This has been a long time coming," she says, and her voice is rough from the yelling.

"Goddamn it," Stiles says, and puts both hands on his head.


End file.
